Greek to Pashto: changing a report into the past can change which participant controls the verb
A past action needs more than a different time word
Greek έγραψα identifies a first-person singular writer in the past, just as γράφω identifies a first-person singular writer in the present. Pashto’s active transitive construction can instead change the case of the actor and the participant controlling verbal agreement between nonpast and past clauses. A translation must rebuild those relations rather than replace only the tense ending.
The Universal Dependencies Pashto documentation describes direct-case actors in nonpast active transitive clauses and oblique-case actors in past clauses. It also describes agreement with the actor in nonpast clauses and with the object in past clauses. These are grammatical relationships, not evidence that the writer and the thing written have exchanged their real-world roles.
The written object can affect a past report
Compare the original Greek source statements Γράφω μια επιστολή, I write a letter, and Έγραψα μια επιστολή, I wrote a letter. The writer remains the person performing the action. In the target past transitive construction, however, the letter’s features become relevant to agreement in a way that the visible first-person Greek ending does not reveal.
Now change the Greek object to plural letters: Έγραψα δύο επιστολές, I wrote two letters. Greek έγραψα still has the same first-person singular form. A Pashto past report must take account of the changed object rather than preserve a verbal form solely because the source writer is still one person.
This is why a target form that appears to reflect a different number must be interpreted within the clause. It may agree with the written items rather than imply that several people wrote them. Correctly identifying the object prevents a false correction that would restore speaker-based agreement where the target past construction requires something else.
Not every past verb has the same case pattern
The documentation distinguishes intransitive clauses from active transitive clauses: an intransitive subject remains in the direct case. A Greek source such as Ήρθα χθες, I came yesterday, does not contain the same actor-object configuration as I wrote a letter. The shared past time does not justify applying one target pronoun pattern to both.
Passive clauses require a further distinction. The person or thing affected by the action can serve as the passive subject, but that is a different construction from an active past report with an oblique actor. A target case change alone must not be paraphrased as a change from I wrote the letter to the letter was written by somebody else.
Greek can omit εγώ because its verb ending already identifies the speaker. That omission does not make the actor unknown. The translator must recover the speaker from the Greek verb and express the required Pashto relationships, rather than treating the written object as the only identifiable participant.
The cited overview also notes restricted exceptions for first- and second-person singular objects in nonpast clauses. Its case table is therefore not a license to replace every target object with one fixed pronoun form. For this pair, the essential practical analysis is to establish the action’s transitivity, time, actor, and object before choosing Pashto case and agreement.
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